Absolutely. As welcome as these announcements are, the problem of programming these architectures efficiently and with a reasonable effort remains a major concern in the computer industry. I do not see much breakthroughs there...

It is a great news that AMD has comeup with a new hardware platform for the chips used in pcs. It has to compete with Intel and Microsoft implementations.
The previous history says that AMD is not being able to successful in getting the market acceptance against Intel, and it is not being able to beat the competition.
Lets hope that this time the history will not get repeated and the society will get something that will reduce the prices of the PC such that PCs will get widely accepted in the average house hold and education sector.
We wish all the best to AMD.

But you are forgetting that Intel charges 3 times the price on the higher end chips.
Even if AMD were to JUST come to parity with Intel it would mean that Intel's profits would tank.
AMD/ATI already has the full package with a GOOD graphics base, Intel has a long way to go to get there.

I don't see AMD "bulldozing" Intel; even if the performance of these new chips surpasses Intel's best, it's not likely to be by a large margin as when the Athlon 64 was up against the Pentium 4 architecture, and Intel has plenty of resources to fight back. What it might mean (assuming that AMD's chips deliver on their promise) is that AMD will have a product line that can face Intel on equal terms throughout the performance spectrum, instead of being limited to the low end (and low margin) part of the business. That will improve their profitability, and thus their prospects for long-term survival.

The extended operating temperature is an interesting point. The higher-end (Core i7, Core2) Intel CPUs are not available in the colder temperature range (down to -40 C or -55 C). Only the lower-end Atom is available in this temperature range. Wonder if AMD could differentiate themselves here. (Or if they, like Intel, don't really care about the relatively low-volume military/industrial segment).

In conjunction with unveiling of EE Times’ Silicon 60 list, journalist & Silicon 60 researcher Peter Clarke hosts a conversation on startups in the electronics industry. One of Silicon Valley's great contributions to the world has been the demonstration of how the application of entrepreneurship and venture capital to electronics and semiconductor hardware can create wealth with developments in semiconductors, displays, design automation, MEMS and across the breadth of hardware developments. But in recent years concerns have been raised that traditional venture capital has turned its back on hardware-related startups in favor of software and Internet applications and services. Panelists from incubators join Peter Clarke in debate.